I was contacted a day after applying on LinkedIn. The recruiter asked a number of managerial-level questions and requested permission to record the call. Some of the questions included: how I’ve demonstrated growth in my past experience, how I handle changing priorities or disruptions, and others. I was then invited to a Teams interview with two supervisors. The job was advertised as mostly remote—“This role is primarily remote, with occasional on-site collaboration at our Houston office”—but that turned out to be false, as it’s actually fully in-office every day. The hiring manager gave an excuse that there were several different ads, which was odd because she should have been aware of that. At this stage, the questions focused on how I handle repetitive work without getting bored, meeting deadlines, and similar topics. I asked the hiring manager what she liked about working in her department, and she mentioned production and doing work for other departments. I saw that as a red flag, since she couldn’t point to anything genuinely positive or appealing about her own team. It also gave the impression that, for $20/hour, they expect to squeeze as much work out of you as possible. The manager didn’t come across as particularly sharp, to be honest. She described the work as a queue where neither employees nor managers control the order of tasks, so it’s unclear why they emphasize prioritization skills if the workflow isn’t controlled at all. There also appeared to be required overtime for monitoring after regular hours, meaning you’d be working into the evening. On those days, the start time would be 10 AM—which is another red flag.

I had a very simple light-hearted interview over the phone. The person who interviewed me eased any fear and anxieties that I generally have with interviews with fun and questions.